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Category Archives: Twitter

The purpose of a hashtag is to segment the firehouse of information that comes from a live Twitter feed when you follow more than 10 people. For example, hashtags can help people find career information when the title of the article doesn’t have the keyword “career” in it. Somehow, as Twitter has grown the purpose of the hashtag has been forgotten.

Lets start this with a little quiz. Here are 2 tweets. Pick the hashtag abuse:

B) How do you send a power tweet that increases #engagement by 400%? #Blogging

The answer? A.

Is that hashtag abuse? #FoShizzle (offense #1). Why?

The answer is probably best explained with my hashtag rules

Use hashtags for event names.Use hashtags to tell people you’re tweeting as a part of a live Twitter chat or an event. And yes, the event name is always the better option for a hashtag over the location name.

Your sentences should make sense. Your sentences still need to make sense while you’re using a hashtag. If the keywords you want to mention really don’t fit in the sentence, put them at the end of the tweet after the link.

#NoHashtagConversations. #writingawholesentencewithnopuntuationandputtingahashtagatthebeginning? I’ve done this. It can be funny for 1 tweet. Do it all the time? Abuse.

No punctuation. Punctuation in a hashtag? It doesn’t work. The second you throw an apostrophe in, hashtags aren’t searchable by the whole phrase. #that’sright shows up as: #that + plain text: ‘sright

Think general, not specific. Good tag: #jobsearch. Bad tag: #thesissentence. People who are searching Twitter are looking for a type of information, not a specific answer. If they want a specific answer, they’ll Google it.

I’m sure there are more. Add your rules to the list in a comment below. I’ll update the list to reflect all of our rules. Maybe a 10 Commandments of Hashtags? #Blasphemy

You get 168 hours a week to save the world, breathe, all that fun stuff. If you’re in work for 45 hours a week (lets face it, the 40 hour work week is a fantasy) and the average person watches around 25 hours of TV a week, that leaves 98 hours for you to eat, sleep and do all those other things you should be doing to take care of yourself. What are you going to tweet about? TV, of course.

Tweeting about TV probably contributes to the whole “people only tweet about what they’re eating for breakfast and I don’t care” theory but I disagree. So why should you tweet about TV you ask?

It gets you in touch with other fans to make more connections. It’s the same reason I try to participate in at least one Twitter chat every week. I want to be part of the conversation (retweeting at least twice as much as I tweet) and it’s a great way to meet new people with similar interests. Twitter is about making connections after all.

So, TV twitterers. What was the last show you tweeted about? For me, it was the Superbowl (game and commercials).

OK, I’ll admit that’s a bad MTV reference but watching the playoffs on Twitter and how @NFL is operating- I want to be their social media ninja. I’ve worked (and am working) in social media for some really amazing companies but it would be my dream come true to work for the NFL.

As I was thinking about this job, I took a look at their website and social media accounts. My evaluation is that they’re doing something, but not enough, to capitalize on the volume of NFL discussions on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of fans are creating content and tweeting during every game. Looking at the NFL Tiwtter page, you’d never know. The fans participating via social media have no place on NFL.com and in their social media presence.

All things considered, I think it’s time for a change @NFL and here are the first 5 things I would do.

Twitter: Holy hashtag opportunity! Why don’t they have their social media buttons and #NFL on the homepage? Super fans could get a live feed of the game when they aren’t home to watch while fans who are watching live would know what to tweet and how to engage with other super fans.

Twitter again: Give the power to the people and RT the fans! I mean, the NFL gets millions of fans purely because of the brand recognition but I’m confident they could double their fans by actually interacting with them.

YouTube: The NFL should run a YouTube campaign where football super fans can make their own Super Bowl commercial. Surprise the fan by featuring the commercial during the Super Bowl. I recommend this because, well, if I see the Saints commercial from last year one more time…

Facebook: They’re not doing a bad job here, at least with promoting the NFL store via Facebook ads, but why not create more interactive content? This could range from tabs where fans can get live updates to something as simple as polls.

Flickr: Use Flickr to catch behind the scenes images at the games and increase ticket sales. A social media representative (or people) for the NFL should be at every game to take pictures of the crazy fans, the reactions to plays, the players, etc.

That’s just my first 5 things. I have more ideas for widgets, polls, blogs, press conferences etc.

Well, my first thought – not on Twitter. Here’s the question I got (with slight revisions):

Hey Katrina,

Thanks so much for your time. So, I am helping a company run their live Tweet from a conference. We are going to hold 3 Tweet Up’s over the course of the day where we will do a ten minute Twitter 101 presentation to help people get started tweeting, join the conference conversation and learn some of the uses for Twitter.

I need to schedule some Tweets to go out during the day about our Tweet Up’s and using the hashtag to join the conversation. I was wondering if you had any suggestions of types of Tweets I should send, frequency (I don’t want to Tweet too much!) or if you had anything that worked really well for you to make an impact and get people to join the conversation.

I’m sure you are swamped so if you can’t respond right away that’s no problem. I just figured I would tap into the expert to get some ideas on best practices.

Thanks so much!

Here’s what I wrote back. Yes, I’m always this direct.

Hi –

Ideas for tweets:

Join the (hashtag) Tweetup sponsored by (company name) at (time) in the (place)

(Insert two popular twitter names that will be in attendance) will be at our (hashtag) Tweetup- will you?

Know someone who needs a Twitter 101 and networking? Come to the (hashtag) Tweetup

Other Ideas:

If possible, create some small flyers. Remember, you’re trying to reach people who aren’t Twitter savvy and aren’t sure what to do with the medium so tweets may not be the best way to reach them.

Judge frequency based on how many people are tweeting. If there are a lot of tweets, you can tweet as much as you want.

As for content, interject your sponsored tweets between RT’s of popular comments from the day. You can find those by following the hashtag at search.twitter.com.

The most important thing to remember: make sure you’re asking questions and using the hashtag! People have to a) know how to find you and b) have something to say.

Last important tip, leave room for the RT! That means your tweets should be no longer than 115 characters.

How did I do? What would you add?

Side note: A great tweet/speaking point to go with any Twitter 101

RT @itsgoodell: LinkedIn is your Rolodex. Facebook is your scrapbook. Twitter is your lifestream idea generator. I get it now.

If you work in social media, I’m sure you’ve gotten the question: “I signed up for that Twitter thing. Can I get a 101 or a Twitter dictionary?” I tried to search for one and didn’t find anything that broke down the Twitter language and defined its value proposition.

So, here’s my best attempt.

Twitter Translation Dictionary:

RT: Retweet aka sharing information someone has already tweeted and giving them recognition for being the original source.

@name: Send a message to someone specifically that anyone can see.

DM: A private message sent between two Twitter members. These members must be following each other.

via @name: When you aren’t RTing what someone said verbatim but would like to give them credit for writing or finding the content, add this to the end of a tweet.

cc @name: Similar to e-mail language- carbon copy.

#FollowFriday: Used to make a recommendation to your Twitter followers on, you guessed it, Friday. Be sure to explain why people should follow your recommendations in your tweet. For example, ” #FollowFriday social media experts …”

#chatname: An online event just happening on Twitter where people with a common cause meet for 1 hour per week or month. For example, if you’re looking for a job you could follow#jobhuntchat.

#randomword: This is similar to keyword tagging on a website and helps people find content and meet people with similar interests.

140: The number of characters you can use in a tweet.

So Why Should You Tweet?:

Now to answer the most common question I get about Twitter: “Why do you want to know what people are drinking or eating? That’s all people tweet about anyway.”

Even if that is all someone tweets about (which it isn’t), consider this scenario.

You’re heading to the same conference as a major influencer in your industry. You follow the person on Twitter and they tweet about their favorite drink, Coca-cola.

How easy is it to grab a coke? How easy is it to start a conversation with someone you barely know? You can start the real life conversation with Twitter. In a networking scenario, the smallest things can make the biggest difference. THAT is why you should be on Twitter.

Looking for a quick and easy way to increase followers and start conversations? Try a 3:1 Twitter ratio.

3 RT’s of content relevant to your company that you did not author

1 Tweet of your own content.

This can help accomplish a few goals really easily.

Get people’s attention so they know your company or account exists

Tell people what your company is about

Learn more about hot topics in your industry

Know about industry events

Develop relationships with industry leaders

You’re probably wondering how you’re supposed to find content to retweet. Some of the ways I like to find content:

Set up queries for relevant search terms (and company keywords, of course). Don’t limit your search to hashtags either- not everyone uses hashtags.

Subscribe to Twitter lists that are relevant to your industry.

Set up a Google reader and subscribe to the blogs you read most often.

Take the title of the blog posts you’re tweeting and search for it at search.twitter.com. There, you’ll find other people who are tweeting the same content and you can RT it from them. Remember, you’re trying to let people know you exist. RT and get noticed! For example, I subscribe to Social Media Examiner and I just read “Engage or Die: The Future of Social Media?” I will search the title at search.twitter.com. Then, I RT other people who have tweeted the article rather than tweeting it myself.